Cloud Awards, an international cloud computing awards program that recognizes industry leaders and pioneers, has just named Dermot Doherty as "Developer of the Year" for his creation of a cloud-based operating system called iSpaces.

“Compiling the shortlist was difficult. But trying to pick individual winners in any category was almost impossible,” said Cloud Awards organizer Larry Johnson. “We are extremely pleased to endorse iSpaces as a cloud services provider which solves real-world problems for its clients, knocking down the barriers inherent in older business models and showing them to be outmoded – truly leveraging cloud technologies to be the best of the best.”...

Cloud computing giant Rackspace has announced plans to partner up with the leading providers of open source data centers. As a founding member of the Open Compute Project, the company’s goal is to make it cheaper and more energy efficient to power the world’s Internet.

Facebook launched the initiative in April 2011 as a pledge to share custom data center designs, and scale computing infrastructure in the most efficient and economical way possible. At the fourth Open Compute Summit in Santa Clara, Calif. today, executives at companies like Facebook, Intel, and Rackspace pooled together their knowledge and resources. They also announced hardware designs, new jobs, and upcoming partnerships...

The growing rate of adoption of cloud based technology has also given rise to a growing concern about deficient security policies in its utilization. Many companies allow their employees to access data and files from their office cloud but have no definite or distinct cloud security policies. There is a nagging dearth of written down best practices for cloud utilization. The concerns are arising at multiple levels such as -

At just $199, the Acer C7 Chromebook seems like the perfect kids’ computer. When I was a kid, my whole family shared one Apple IIc. All the graphics were green. The software that taught me touch typing came on multiple floppy disks. Print Shop was my favorite way to make use of the dot matrix printer. The internet was not accessible.

My kids obviously live in a different time. Their world is saturated with personal computing. At five and seven years old, they are already familiar with “Google” as a verb. They are tablet savvy, navigating Minecraft in ways that are puzzling to me. And they have their own gmail accounts. When other parents hear me talking about emails that my son sent, their first reaction is a smile. It seems cute. However, they also express understandable worry that the internet is filled with predators and cyber-bullying...

Six months ago, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked CIO Brett Goldstein to bring the Windy City into the digital age. The most visible example of Goldstein's digital sprint came in the first week of January with an announcement that the city was shifting its 30,000 employees to cloud-based email and desktop applications based on the Microsoft 365 office cloud.

Cloud computing, which often seems too much hype and too little reality, is starting to capture real customers. And government organizations, cities in particular, are paying attention and starting to sign up for cloud services. Chicago, a city not known for being trendy for trend's sake, is the latest to make a big cloud commitment...

Most financial services companies officially forbid the use of public cloud (aka Amazon Web Services) completely. But the forward thinkers among them — like State Street — keep their options — and minds — open about such deployment in the future.

Question: Just how much mission-critical work do financial services firms and companies in other heavily regulated industries put on the public cloud? Answer: It depends on whom you ask. IT execs in financial services — including Chris Perretta, CIO and executive vice president of State Street – say they absolutely do not allow the use of Amazon Web Services at all. Period. (For my purposes, public cloud for now pretty much means AWS). They deal not only with their own top-secret data but with that of clients, which makes a move into a cloud they don’t control a career-limiting decision...

If there’s one thing that could slow the inexorable rush to cloud computing, it’s the dearth of talent trained and certified in the ways of the cloud. A new Microsoft Corp.-sponsored report from analyst firm IDC says 1.7 million cloud-related IT jobs went unfilled in 2012 and the number of available cloud positions will swell 26 percent per year to about seven million by 2015.

This puts the United States’ pace of cloud jobs growth well ahead of general IT employment, which is expected to continue its tepid climb of less than 3 percent through 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The gap — coupled with the state of the IT workforce, which remains unprepared to handle advanced cloud jobs — is putting a renewed focus on retraining tech workers and pushing students to focus on cloud skills and certifications...

2012 has been a challenge and a year of recovery and change for Northern Nevada. If you are reading this, then you have survived the end-of-time hype of the Mayan calendar prophecies and probably are resigned to continue your march toward the new year. As you contemplate the beginning of a new calendar, it is a good time to review 2012 and see where past developments portend new opportunities.

One of the biggest local announcements was Apple’s decision to build a data center and office space in the region. While this is great news for our local economy, the real benefits will come from the name recognition and the diversification that this type of industry can bring. Technology-focused businesses like Apple, Intuit and Microsoft attract and develop a new type of workforce that will positively influence the economy, education and our community for years to come...

Although it seems to encompass about as many definitions as potential ways to help businesses run in a more efficient manner while trimming costs in the process, cloud computing is in the midst of transforming how information is accessed and monetized — and even how entire industries are evolving.

Cloud computing becomes more crystallized when you consider what IT always needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities as needed without investing in new, expensive infrastructure, training new personnel or licensing new software. Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT's existing capabilities...

In the latest case of researchers using the cloud for good, Google is highlighting the six projects to which it awarded grants via its Exacycle for Visiting Faculty program. Ranging from genomic research to astronomy, the researchers received 100 million computing hours apiece.

Deep in the bowels of Google’s offices in Mountain View, Calif., and Seattle, a group of researchers has been consuming an incredible amount of computing resources trying to make scientific discoveries that they hope will help change the world...